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Post by limpopomark on Dec 20, 2012 12:00:40 GMT
Brickwork pretty much done... boom! Cloudy in the photo, so you can;t see the tiny wildebeest calf in the backgroundm which is a shame. That's pretty much it for now; need to source some bricks for the oven floor, decided (thanks Terry!) on a brick arch but no chmney, so once the floor bricks are found/liberated/bought/donated, we're back on it. Season's greetings one and all, mark Attachments:
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Post by limpopomark on Jan 15, 2013 11:06:29 GMT
A brief update while the kettle boils and the rain beats down (finally).
There was something of a pause over the festive period, partly due to a general inability to drive or operate machinery, partly as all the volunteers had gone to wherever they came from and partly due to lack of bricks for the oven floor/hearth.
In the interim, spookily, we managed to gather quite a few bottles for an insulating layer.
The first volunteers of the year are here now, and as of yesterday we've acquired a few clay bricks from a building site in the town 240km away where we do our grocery shopping. Having been almost drawn into minor crime to get hold of them while they were unattended during the holidays, I stopped off and asked the foreman if he could help out; £3.55 later I had 50 bricks in the car in a rather large cardboard box which will come in handy when making the brick arch.
The other thing that's been on my mind is the cover. Whilst Christmas day here was a balmy 45C with not a cloud in sight, we do occasionally get monumental downpours and I fear the mud beast would not appreciate a soaking. Mercifully, the reserve scrap yard is next to the house, so I have knocked together a little frame from 30mm water pipes, structurally bolstered by four old broom handles, and will somehow cover this to make a hat for the oven with canvas left over from the old camp they are upgrading. If the oven didn't promise to look phallic before, it will now have it's very own canvas condom.
I'll stick a picture up at some point.
The kettle must have boiled by now, and the rain has stopped.
mark
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Post by limpopomark on Jan 16, 2013 19:20:58 GMT
... spoke too soon about the rain - had an unprecendented 165mm in 24hrs, so most of my potential clay is now very much underwater again... grrr
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Post by limpopomark on Jan 21, 2013 7:07:01 GMT
Just another short update/excuse for lack of progress. Since Wednesday we've had about 470mm or 18'' rain, which is three times what we had in all of 2012. Mercifully, the plinth is still standing (concrete slabs must be good for something...) as a rather large hole has appeared near the house, about a metre and a half deep, and the local roads have become rivers. Anyway, once things are dry and we've recovered the trapped landcruiser, we'll go get some sand and crack on. The rain also washed quite a bit of our stored clay away, and the rest is now under at least a metre of water, so I am hoping that what we have will serve us well for now! We will still make the best pizza in Limpopo, I promise. Just not this month. Attached a picture of what we woke up to on Sunday monring. mark Attachments:
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Post by turkey on Jan 21, 2013 11:56:10 GMT
blimey your swimming pool has grown
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Post by umhloti on Jan 21, 2013 18:23:38 GMT
when it does rain in Africa it buckets . How far you from the Limpopo river Mark. Nice photo . Love the smell after a rain like that in Africa. Its bloody cold in Ireland now and snow
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Post by limpopomark on Jan 21, 2013 19:04:32 GMT
haha turkey yeah... the swimming pool has sunk into the ground so needs some major attention and also the pump burned out after being submerged... on sunday when it was raining at full tilt we were thinking of seeing whether we could float out of camp on an inner tube and into the nearby pan; the boss was thinking of tubing down the main road
umhloti we are close, but up and over a hill, so unless mapungubwe national park disappears into the limpopo we are safe from it flooding, though there are alarming rumours that the shashe dam is about to pop - news here is traveling slowly, and it's the poor sods in mozambique i am really worried about; went out today to fetch our stranded land cruiser, and the comedy of errors that ensued was beyond imagination - 5 stuck cruisers, one stuck tractor, one stuck hilux, one stuck jcb, all trying to help each other but in the end only two cruisers and the jcb made it out
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Post by limpopomark on Jan 28, 2013 9:42:25 GMT
So.... it's been a while since there was any action on the oven, but this weekend has seen a milestone reached, sort of. I have added the final bricks for the front and pretty much decided how the hearth is going to work, and chucked in the sand, the bottles and then some more sand. Of course, I now realise how ridiculously inconsistent my bricks all are, none being exactly the same size. Still, worse things happen. I also didn't chuck in the bottles - I laid them very carefully, and struggled not to alternate green and brown ones. Found 6 bricks somewhere or other that are the same as the reserve manager's oven are built from, so will use them as the bit of the floor that sees the most action. The clay bricks I acquired seem to chuck off quite a few sandy bits and while I am sure this will calm down after a few firings I don't wan't to be breaking people's teeth with the best pizza in the Limpopo valley. The old clay bricks, found underground or randomly on the reserve, don't throw any chunks off at all, but they are even more odd shaped, varying from almost banana shaped to parallelograms - definitely not rectangular. Oh well - we will see what happens. I've attached a couple of pictures. One of some bottles and the other of one of the locals, who paid a visit on Friday evening and gave me a bit of a rev while I was closing our gate, but kindly left behind some matter which will come in handy for the insulating layer. I'll hopefully lay the floor today. Picture to follow. Cheers! mark Attachments:
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Post by limpopomark on Jan 28, 2013 9:43:20 GMT
and here are the bottles... Attachments:
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Post by rivergirl on Jan 28, 2013 10:46:45 GMT
That would have blown my mind!!, how envious you have made me with that picture!
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Post by cannyfradock on Jan 28, 2013 18:42:48 GMT
Hi Mark
I would love to give you an easy-fix for your hearth....I don't think there is one. The only fix I can think of for flaking bricks when used for a hearth is to use an angle grinder with a grinding disc (not cutting disc) attached. Then grind away until you have reached a solid platform after the bricks are in place.......I know you live in the back of beyond so perhaps this is not an option available to you.
If there were a depot where these bricks came from....and there were lots of flaking or crumbly bricks you could use the "bits" from these bricks mixed with sand and cement at a ratio of 4:2:1 ...clay bits, sand and cement.....this would make an ideal refractory hearth which would take any temperature.
Terry
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Post by limpopomark on Jan 29, 2013 17:19:20 GMT
Thanks again folks, and Terry... the hearth is laid. To celebrate, I am having an early night. Sunburned, tired, and full of dust.
Pics to follow (of the hearth, not my pink, sleepy, powdery self), but not right now. It's wine o'clock.
laters
mark
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Post by umhloti on Jan 29, 2013 21:41:30 GMT
nice one mark
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Post by limpopomark on Jan 31, 2013 11:54:02 GMT
The hearth, before filling the gaps. Those pale bricks were found in the scrap yard behind me, and are the same kind of concrete stuff the reseve manager's whole oven is made from (all the heat facing surfaces, anyway), the pink ones are the smoothest surfaced old bricks I found and the purple ones are the ones from the site manager of the building site that agreed so sell me a few. I've filled the gaps with gravel and will follow with mortar - I only just realised that the external dimensions of the beast mean that the exposed corners will be fully exposed, so I want to build in a small fall to take any rain/sprinkler-splash/spilled beer off and away from the dome, which I am sure won't be too challenging. Once again, thanks for all your imput so far! mark Attachments:
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Post by cannyfradock on Jan 31, 2013 22:35:35 GMT
Mark Normally the hearth bricks are either dry...or wet bedded on some sort of refractory mortar...or even sand, but they are never mortared together. I use the dried up, left over mix from the homebrew mortar and brush this into the joints .....others use fine sand. Anything smaller than a few mm's are left. This soon gets filled up with fine ash after firing and forms a solid mass which doesn't affect the base of the pizzas when fresh dough is laid on the hearth. Terry
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